Nothing concentrates the mind better than the impending footfalls of danger. The gathering in Bali can hear such steps approaching from two directions. The tread of one is captured in the fourth assessment report of the IGPCC; the pace of the other in the interstices of the international petroleum market. The delegates know that somehow the tread must be stalled; the pace slowed. The challenge is immense but the task is not insuperable. The means exist. The question is whether in the face of the intrinsic constraints of national and vested self interests the congregation can find the will to carve out a framework for decisive action that is acceptable to the global community. If not, the twin dangers of global warming and oil price volatility will jeopardise the sustainability of economic and social progress.

The fourth report of the IGPCC contains inter alia a disturbing message. The world does not have the time it thought it had to arrest global warming. The temperature today is on average 0.7oC (1.3oF) higher than the temperatures prevailing in the pre-industrial period. If the global objective is to limit this increase to no more than 2oC (3.6oF) (and this is indeed the European Union’s objective) then the concentration of green house gases (GHG) in the atmosphere must be stabilised at around 450 ppm. The concentration levels today are 375 ppm. At current rates of GHG emissions this means the world has around 10 years and certainly not more than 20 years to secure this stability. This is a time frame that does not allow countries to ‘develop first, and then clean up later’. It is also a time frame that cannot wait upon technological breakthroughs. It requires decisive action now premised on existing technologies.

... contd.